Each stage of the Giro that is canceled or shortened brings memories of the Gavia
The story of each year, when the Giro focuses on the Dolomites, and moreover lately very insistently: the snow makes an appearance, the runners stop, the race gives way and we all return to the Gavia, year 1988.
We return, of course we return, but we do not notice one thing very clear, those times will no longer return.
Given the shortening of the stage that started in Livigno, I can only say that I expected it and that it seemed logical and coherent to the way things are going in this sport.
The cycling of 2024 differs from that of 1988 in that the cyclist is at the center of everything.
They think more about him, they listen to him and his teams care much more about his health.
That Gavia situation ended with epic results and a lot of luck that nothing worse happened, as you will read later.
In each of these stages, those of us who are not in the race come up a thousand times, but we believe we are right, but this time, I think the runners were right.
The snowfall at the start, as you can see in the photo, was significant, and the ridiculous design of the stage led the runners to a very long descent below zero, wet and very cold.
The platoon could have stayed in half.
It is true that in 1988 it possibly would have been done, or not, because few remember – as Perico did on Eurosport – that the Stelvio was canceled the next day after the Gavia scare.
Today the race was not going to give more of itself to complete the entire stageand it is true, in 2014 the Stelvio was lowered in a snow storm and a year before Nibali won in Lavaredo in a tremendous snowfall, but the fact that it was done then was due to the fact that the peloton might not take the risks of this day.
The day will come when the Giro no longer challenges the heights of the Dolomites and Alps, they have the most beautiful mountains, but in these capricious springs they endear themselves to us.
There was no Stelvio, no Umbrailpass, or anything.
The day was cut short, while the nostalgic people were showing images of the Gavia
But what happened on the Gavia 36 years ago?
It was June 5, spring in the Dolomites, half spring – like when Perico and Carlos de Andrés talk about the French summer -, especially when the afternoon before that day all the reports pointed to apocalyptic weather on the climb to Gavia.
In the morning, knowing that things were going to get ugly, Mike Neel, Seven Eleven’s sports director, already proposed special logistics.
Three hundred meters from the top of Passo di Gavia, he placed a car with hot drinks for the runners.
At the top there is a second vehicle loaded with dry clothes.
Before we get there, the end of the world.
Already in the unpaved section at the beginning, the escapee Johan Van der Velde was climbing in the middle of a snowfall that turns the route into a quagmire, since the Gavia has unpaved sections.
Theirs was a fierce adventure, which has survived in time and the memory of the fan, which would not have the desired end, because in the counterattack group the bosses came out, with Erik Breukink at the head, and Andy Hampsten with him, to conquer the most indomitable Gavia in history.
Although Van der Velde was the first to crownhe would be hunted by the Dutch and the Americans when he stood at the top to protect himself from a descent that looked horrible.
Perico did not even try to put on gloves due to the uselessness of his hands frozen by cold and humidity, he did so in the midst of fans who lent their anoraks to the cyclists.
The descent featured tight curves with gradients of 16%, a challenge that left the monstrous climb an anecdote, a question of survival that those at Seven Eleven knew how to foresee better than others.
Apart from the cars at the top of Gavia, Andy Hampsten had Vaseline smeared from head to toe.
We saw the result, Hampsten arrived with Breukink escaped to the Bormio goal to start getting a historic Giro back on track, as it would be the first that an American would win, something that we have not seen repeated.
Half an hour after the winners, the fans’ favorites, Visentini & Saronni, arrived, as an example of the differences that opened up that day.
El Gavia, a port with more than sixty years of tradition in the Giro, had gone down in history to be remembered annually, every time the peloton faces a day that falls into the canons of extreme cold.
«We knew little about Gavia and we didn’t even want to recognize it in advance. Suddenly I found myself on dirt tracks and in the middle of six-meter walls of snow. I felt like Fausto Coppi» said Imerio Massignan, the first to crown him in 1960.
Image: FB of Giro d’Italia
2024-05-21 19:02:19
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